Man to be charged for digging for Northern New Mexico buried treasure

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - State game and fish officials say they plan to file charges against a man who was digging for hidden treasure.

Department spokesman Dan Williams says the man was found digging under a descanso along the upper Pecos River at the Terrero Campground last month.

A descanso is a marker where someone has died or their ashes scattered. Williams says the man told officers he was digging for the chest of gold and jewels that Santa Fe artifact collector Forrest Fenn says he has hidden in the mountains north of Santa Fe.

Fenn has published a memoir with a poem of clues to the treasure's location.

Williams told the Santa Fe New Mexican the man will be charged under a state law making it a misdemeanor to "excavate, injure, destroy or remove any cultural resource or artifact" on State Game Commission land.

The treasure was first written about in a 2011 story by KOB Eyewitness News 4 reporter Gadi Schwartz and has since been featured on NBC's "Today Show."

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